Need to Delete a SharePoint List?

I touched on the topic of deleting lists once before, but in that instance the relevant information was buried at the end of my return-from-TechEd post. Bad form, that. Anyway, since I buried the lead before, and since (possibly as a result of having buried the lead before) I had another relatively new-to-SharePoint colleague ask me today how to delete a list, and since I discovered that the process is more straightforward than I'd previously thought, I'm going to revisit the topic today.

When I was asked by another new-to-SharePoint colleague if I could help him delete a list a couple of months ago, I managed to blunder my way through, but it seemed to be not only a completely counterintuitive process, it also seemed needlessly repetitive. At the time, the only way we were able to successfully delete the list required deleting it in two different locations. It got the job done, yes, but it sure seemed like a lot of work (and a heck of a circuitous path).

Well, when the same question came up again today, two months later, rather than refer back to what I'd written previously (the blog search feature is awfully handy, folks!), I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to test my mad SharePoint skills.

(Yes, that was a joke. I don't really think I possess mad SharePoint skills yet, but a man can dream, can't he?)

Anyway, as it turns out, I surprised myself by discovering, within three clicks, the answer to the question. More importantly, I learned a far more streamlined way to delete a list. In fact, I feel pretty confident in proclaiming this to be the correct way to delete a list. So how do you do it? Simply select the list you want to delete from the Quick Launch bar (or your navigational method of choice) and then, from the Settings dropdown on that list, choose List Settings. Once you've done that, you'll see a "Delete this List" hyperlink at the top of the Permissions and Management column. Click that link, and get happy!

I still don't think the process is terribly intuitive though ... and I've got at least two colleagues who I'm pretty sure would agree with me.

Hi John. Do you have any idea what to do if the "Delete this List" is not there??? I'm not a server admin so if there are settings that would need to taken care of on that level, I can't check. But I can't find any other reason that this option wouldn't be available to me. I have Full Control on the website/list.

Office Sharepoint server publising, and then go to "site actions" again. ->modify navigation. Under navigation and editing and sorting, click on the list you want to delete and hit the "x delete" button.